


Eye of the Storm

by PR Zed (przed)



Category: Take That, Tennis RPF
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/przed/pseuds/PR%20Zed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Jason tries to find a bit of calm during the Olympics closing ceremony, he runs into someone unexpected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eye of the Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [halotolerant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halotolerant/gifts).



Jason Orange had twenty years experience in finding calm amid chaos.

Which was a damned good thing just at the moment. It was bad enough with all the musicians and singers and athletes and crew swirling around the backstage insanity that was the Olympic closing ceremony, but there was band drama added on. Gary was nowhere near himself, and Jason could only imagine the grief he was feeling. Mark was trying to make their Captain feel better and only succeeding in making him feel worse. (Poor Markie only wanted to help, but Jason reckoned there was no way someone with a new baby could help someone who'd just lost theirs.) And Howard was looking upset and out of sorts. 

Jason half-wished they'd cancelled their damned performance, but that would have left Kim with a giant hole in his carefully planned spectacle, and none of them wanted that. (Kim had been so happy when he'd got the Olympics gig. And so grateful to them. "You lot are the reason they even looked at me," Kim had told them. "I'm giving you a prime spot.") It didn't make it easy, though. Didn't make it easy to face that monstrous crowd out there when their leader was wounded and there was absolutely nothing that could heal him but time. Didn't make it easy to face the millions upon millions of people who'd be watching the bloody ceremony and wondering what a naff grown-up British boyband was doing on their television screens.

As the ceremony kicked off and the inexorable countdown to their performance began, Jason found the need to escape building within him until he thought he might explode with it. When no one was watching, he finally slipped out of the dressing room they'd been given--a rare private space, offered to them in deference to Gary's grief--and moved through the crowds, looking for that impossible thing, a space with no one in it. He finally found it: a small electrical room that was empty but for cables and concrete pillars and discarded broken down furniture. It was perfect. 

He closed the door behind him, and breathed out all the tension he'd been feeling as he leaned against a bare concrete wall. But as he closed his eyes, he heard something: a rustle and a cough and the scraping of a chair.

His eyes shot open, and he found himself looking at the person who'd beaten him to this private space. A tall, slightly sheepish person standing half behind one of the pillars, with a medal around his neck and his hands in the pockets of his Team GB uniform.

"I just needed a bit of quiet," the bloke said, his Scottish accent as soft as his voice.

"Me too," said Jason.

"Andy Murray," he said, and stuck out his hand.

"I recognized you." Jason shook the offered hand. "Jason Orange."

"I recognized you, too," Murray said.

"So," he said, unsure what to say to a sporting legend. "Gold medal."

"So," Murray said, looking as awkward as Jason felt. "Take That."

There was a pause, a moment of silence, and then they both started laughing. And why not. It was a ridiculous situation, two famous men hiding from the crowds in this little room.

"Hiding from the crowds?" Murray asked when he'd finally stopped laughing.

"Something like that. You?"

"Yeah," Murray said and bit his lip. "This fame bollocks, does it ever get any easier?"

"No," Jason said with a shake of his head. "Not for me. It's never sat easy on my shoulders." He sighed. "I'd give it up tomorrow, if I could."

"Why don't you?"

"Even if I quit tomorrow, I'd still be recognized. I only have to walk into a Costa Coffee and I can see people fumbling for their bloody mobiles just itching to post a picture of me on bloody Facebook." He grinned. "Besides, I may not like the fame, but I love the performing."

He saw a spark of recognition in Murray's eyes.

"That's how I feel." Murray shuffled his feet and looked down at the medal around his neck. "I don't want to be recognized when I'm going to the shops, but I love playing." He looked up and gave Jason a grin. "And I love winning." 

"You must have enjoyed winning that, then." Jason pointed to the gold medal.

"Yeah." Murray reached down and held the medal as if he couldn't quite believe he was wearing it. "Must be like you lot winning a Brit."

"I'll tell you something." He grinned at Murray, delighted to be sharing his dirty little secret at last. "Winning the Smash Hits Polls Awards was far more fun than winning a Brit." He pointed to his own chest. "You're looking at the Best Dancer in Pop, 1993." 

"I was six in '93."

"Flippin' heck. Are you trying to make me feel old?"

"No. Sorry." But Murray's grin undercut his apology.

"Cheeky bastard. Just wait until some young tennis star tells you they were in infant school when you won your medal."

"Wouldn't bother me. Not when I've won. Because-" Murray hesitated, and Jason could see him struggling to say something important. "Well, it means I didn't let anyone down, doesn't it?"

Suddenly Jason found himself looking not at a confident, gold medal-winning Olympian, but a fifteen-year-old kid unsure if he deserved what he'd been handed. He saw not just the young Andy Murray, but the boys Mark and Howard and Robbie had been. He even saw a younger version of the Captain, hiding his insecurity behind what seemed a massive ego and constant work. And he saw himself, a young man arrogantly confident in his dancing ability but constantly made to feel he was only one step ahead of being sacked.

Jason moved without thinking, closing the distance between them and putting an arm around Murray's shoulders.

"You do the best you can, and you won't have let anyone down," Jason said, a lesson he wasn't sure he'd learned yet himself, but something he always told himself.

Murray ducked his head down, and looked like he was about to say something, but then there was a loud chime, and an announcement blared on the PA outside, sounding loud even in their refuge.

"Athletes to the staging area," said a plummy female voice. "All athletes to the staging area."

"I've got to go," Murray said, then gave Jason a quick hug in return.

"Me, too," said Jason as they broke apart. "The show must go on."

They left their hiding place and went in opposite directions. Murray was immediately swallowed up by the crowds and chaos Jason had been looking to escape.

But Jason found he wasn't ready to go back to the dressing room. Not quite yet. He climbed up on a trunk that must have held some band's gear, crossed his legs, put his hands on his knees, and watched the ebb and flow of people around him. He watched the athletes pass by, all of them smiling and dancing whether they had medals around their necks or not. He watched the roadies getting their bands' gear ready, the bands awaiting their turn to go on stage, and the fleet of Minis roaring off to carry the Spice Girls around the stadium. He even saw Kim off in the distance at one point, gesturing calmly as he straightened out some cock up.

But then the Brazilian dancers began lining up and Jason realized their time in the spotlight would be upon him soon enough. He unfolded his legs, jumped down from the trunk, and headed back to their dressing room.

"Where were you?" Mark asked when he slipped back in the door. He and Gary were hovering just inside, with Howard behind them. 

"They thought you'd buggered off," Howard said, nodding at the other two members of the band, who looked even more worried than when he'd left. "I told them you'd be back."

For once, Jason didn't say anything. He wasn't sure what to say, what needed to be said. Instead, he gathered them all into a group hug, Mark on one side, Howard on the other, and Gaz across from him. Outside, there was the roar of the crowd responding to the Rio dancers; inside there were just four mates, four friends, supporting each other through what was meant to be their moment of triumph and had turned into something else entirely, something complicated and difficult but ultimately uplifting.

"Two minutes, gentlemen," a voice said from the other side of the door. Quick pats on the back all 'round, and they were moving out into the crowd, ready to take their places on the stage.

The chaos didn't bother Jason now. They'd created their own sense of calm for each other, their own eye of the storm.

The lights lowered, the band struck up Rule the World, and they all strode out to the stage, ready to do what they did best.


End file.
